Let’s keep Eagles Aerie
Editor:
The U.S. Forest Service ranger is still planning to decommission the picnic area known as Eagles Aerie. (The sign went down a couple of years ago and was never put back up, but it is the picnic area at the top of Highway 103.)
This means that one of the most, if not the most, beautiful scenic areas in Clear Creek County will have its outhouse and the picnic tables with braziers yanked out.
Just trying to remove those tables will destroy rocks and lichen-covered boulders that have been there for hundreds of years.
It is the only picnic area on this scenic byway that has all the components to make upgrading for limited mobility easy.
It already has a smooth path back to the outhouse except for one stone, and there is a picnic table close to the path for the wheelchair-bound.
The picnic tables could use a sanding and coat of paint. Certain rangers want to yank out all the picnic facilities including the outhouse and put in a viewing station.
You cannot remove those tables and the outhouse without tearing up the scenery that is so unusual.
You have to go up the Mount. Evans Road to tree line to see anything comparable. Indeed, there are at least two types of alpine flowers there, the kind you only see close to the top of Mount Evans.
It is beautiful with wind-blown trees, a solitude all its own and a setting of a whole range of mountains across the highway. Many people stop just to take pictures.
Don’t let them tell you it is a question of money because it would take more money to remove the current facilities than to upgrade the outhouse and make a smooth path to it.
We must fight to keep it and to get it upgraded for the less fortunate because there is not one other picnic facility on the highway that has both picnic tables and a view for those with ambulatory problems that is easy to get to from a paved drive way.
Don’t the wheelchair-bound deserve picnic tables and a view?
The forest recreation officer in charge of this decision works out of Fort Collins, and his name is Paul E. Cruz. His phone number is 970-295-6614, and email address is pecruz@fs.ed.us. Please contact him and let him know that to decommission is a mistake.
What this picnic area needs is an upgrade.
Grace Todd
Idaho Springs

Thanks for stories on meth
Editor:
Thank you for shining the spotlight on the very serious drug problem we have in Clear Creek County.
Between the meth and the “medical” marijuana, it sounds like Idaho Springs could now be called Dope City!
My questions: If we’ve had this filth up here for so long, why did it take 10 years before we publicly admitted it? Does our high suicide rate tie in?
Ginger McIntyre
Idaho Springs